Deciding Together
by ssadropout
Summary: This is my stab at the Blind!Roy challenge conceived by Thousand Sunny Lyon, Megami Ze, Disastergirl and mebh. Roy is uncertain about using the Stone to regain his sight. Riza has something to say about it.


**A/N**- Here's another fic for the Thousand Sunny Lyon, Megami Ze, Disastergirl and mebh Blind!Roy challenge. It's in the _Brotherhood_ universe, 'cause that's the one that gave us at least a little Roy/Riza aftermath, even if it did also give us the mustache. It's another hospital room fic, but I hope that it has its own slant on what went on in there. Do read the other challenge stories. Along with the original challengers, there are stories by SammyQuill and Lou Nebin (so far). They are all **awesome**!

I own FMA only in my very best dreams.

**royroyroyroy**

Midnight.

_What an exhausting day!_ Roy thought. His men had spent hours reading to him and testing his comprehension and memory of all things Ishvalan. It wasn't easy, but he wasn't doing too badly. Just little mistakes here and there. Anyway, he'd heard Knox's voice. And then, Marcoh's! And, he had told Marcoh, "yes," despite his misgivings about using the Stone.

But now, he was wondering (again) if he had made the right decision. He thought that he had heard a little gasp from Riza when he'd paused to request that Havoc be healed first. She'd been afraid that he wouldn't accept the healing. He was pretty sure she wanted him to use the Stone.

Fullmetal had refused to use it. It was against his ethics. It was against Roy's ethics, too. _But so was incinerating innocent Ishvalans. When did knowing something was wrong ever stop me from doing it? _He sighed. _I want to see, _he thought. _Am I a good enough man to refuse this damned opportunity?_

"Col- Roy. What's wrong? Are you in pain? Shall I call for the nurse?" Hawkeye's voice sounded like sandpaper.

"Shh. No, Riza. I'm fine. Well, I'm not worse," he laughed nervously. "Go to sleep. I'm just thinking."

"I know it must be a strain, so why don't you share with me." _What a pathetic attempt at humor_, she thought.

"Rest your voice. Soon."

"Is it the Stone? Are you having second thoughts about using it?"

"How the hell could you possibly have known that?" he squeaked. "Even as well as you know me."

"How could I not?"

She'd pretty much been a bystander, with the others reading to the Colonel- Roy- and drilling him. She couldn't use her voice very much. Her larynx hadn't been injured, but the traumas of having her neck sliced, and, just yesterday, having surgery, had caused edema that had made speaking temporarily difficult.

The atmosphere in their hospital room had been so happy, almost festive. Roy had insisted on her using his given name. "I don't want you to strain your voice," he had joked. He had compared their situation to the three stages of alchemy: comprehension, deconstruction, and reconstruction. They were finally at the third part. He'd been studying when Dr. Knox had walked in- not really a surprise- but then Marcoh and his amazing offer. For a couple of seconds, she had been afraid that he'd refuse, but he'd just wanted Havoc to be taken care of first. What a relief! (Though it didn't take long until she began to worry if there was enough Stone for both men.) And now, she _knew_ that he was having doubts. She almost wished that he wasn't adjusting to blindness as well as he was. Last night he had sat by her bed, holding her hand loosely in one of his injured ones and had told her that he could deal with the mandatory discharge and never being Fuhrer as long as he could spend his life chipping away at the infinite debt that he owed Ishval _and_ as long as she… Well, that part was _perfect_ but was not the current issue.

"You should use it, Roy. You _must_ use it. You've always said that I'm to keep you on track, and that's what I am doing now.

"Don't worry about it. You shouldn't be talking so much. Rest. We'll discuss it later," he said in his dismissive voice.

It didn't work.

"No one else can do what has to be done for Ishval, Roy. No one else could have put the coup in motion. Grumman and Armstrong are great generals. Great _military_ people. You're a _leader_. A man with ideas and fire, no pun intended."

He would have groaned at her wordplay if she hadn't angered – or saddened him. He wasn't sure which it was, or if it was both. "Are you saying that I can't work for Ishval if I am blind? Because I am studying awfully hard for _nothing_, then. Is that what I'm doing?"

"Of course not. What you've been doing the past few days- it's amazing. I swear that you're learning more quickly than you did when you were a boy." Her voice softened. "It makes me love you even more. I am totally convinced that you would be phenomenally wonderful in Ishval either way.

"But those Ishvalans who died to create the Stone. Don't you think that they would want to be a part of it? You can't talk to them like Hohenheim does, but don't you think that they'd want their sacrifices to contribute to Ishval's rebuilding? If you use the Stone to regain your eyesight, they will have died less in vain."

"That's a bit of rationalizing, I think."

"I don't! People donate their bodies to science when they die. It's a legacy. They help people after their deaths. How would you feel if it were you?" Her voice was fading now, and her throat was hurting. But she managed to continue.

"And you could stay in the army and become Fuhrer eventually and do even more that only _you_ could or would do."

The passion that fueled her words had kept her from noticing that he had gotten out of his bed and moved silently to hers.

"Shh. I'll do it," he whispered. Somehow, he had found her cheek without fumbling and was stroking it with his fingertips. "But the real reason I want to see is to look at you."

"Did that line _ever_ work for you, Roy?" His fingertips had skipped over her wound and moved lower.

His reply was a soft kiss on her lips and a swirl of his fingers.

"You do know that hospital room doors have no locks, don't you?"

"I'll seal it with alchemy."

"Do you really want to clap your hands?"

**rizarizarizariza**

**A/N**- Thanks for opening up the challenge, guys. It was fun. (I'm glad Roy got his sight back, but I Love Blind!Roy and think he would have been just fine.) This fic has 974 words (not including the A/Ns) thanks to the use of contractions. XD


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